Weird MS Exchange / Outlook / Sharepoint occurrance

So you know how Outlook's New Message editor has that little dropdown menu with the last 10 or so files you've opened or saved, for convenient attachment?

This morning, a file that DD#1 apparently saved at her job showed up in my work email's recent files drop down.  These are 2 addresses that have zero connection - I don't even know her work email address and have received no email or files from her at my work address.

Oddly enough the file has our last name in the title, but I have no idea what the contents are.  She has the same last name so it could be her information or it could have ours in it.  But I have never seen the file before its Sharepoint URL showed up in my Outlook recent files list, let alone opened it.  Trying to attach the file via that link just returns a not found error.

Weird stuff.

Good luck, this thread title is the IT equivalent of "weird rectum/anus/lower intestine occurrance," except that analogy falls a bit short because I'm not sure the human body has something as awful as Sharepoint that is considered a normal and healthy feature.

Sharepoint:  the COVID-19 of Office

It's not really a problem; I just thought it was incredibly odd to have happened randomly.  As I said I don't know anything bout the file other than its name, which includes our non-common family name.  The contents could conceivably have my work email in it (she is my daughter) but I can't imagine how Exchange decided it was something I had access to, considering it is on a government server in her public service organization.

AngryCorvair said:

Sharepoint:  the COVID-19 of Office

 

If you are up to date.  We have are still on a COVID-10/13 hybrid here

That is super-weird. Was the file an MS Office file? I'm not an IT guy, but I do know that when a user works in an Office file, a unique identifier is sometimes injected into it, including your name and email. If DD#1 worked on the file on a computer that you share, then it's conceivable that your info made it into the file, then, via Office 365, the file ended up in your dropdown list.

If you want to geek out on it, you could have DD#1 send you a copy of the file; next, change the extension to .zip (yes, .zip -- MS Office files are actually zip files), open the file, look for a folder named after the application it's for (i.e., open the "word" folder if it's a Word file), then look for a file called people.xml. Open it and look for your name and email address. If there's no people.xml file (it's not always present), I got no other ideas.

Or maybe I'm totally off here, and an actual IT person can 'splain it... :-)

EDIT: you can open XML files into a web browser.

In reply to procainestart :

Yes, it was an Excel spreadsheet.